Here’s a full analysis of the poem “A Wife in London” by Thomas Hardy, tailored towards A-Level students, but also suitable for those studying at a higher level.
Includes:
Poem
Vocabulary
Story/Summary
Speaker/Voice
Language features
Structure/Form
Context
Attitudes
Themes
She sits in the tawny vapour
That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled,
Behind whose webby fold-on-fold
Like a waning taper
The street-lamp glimmers cold.
A messenger's knock cracks smartly,
Flashed news in her hand
Of meaning it dazes to understand
Though shaped so shortly:
He—he has fallen—in the far South Land…
II The Irony
'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker,
The postman nears and goes:
A letter is brought whose lines disclose
By the firelight flicker
His hand, whom the worm now knows:
Fresh—firm—penned in highest feather—
Page-full of his hoped return,
And of home-planned jaunts of brake and burn
In the summer weather,
And of new love that they would learn.
, VOCABULARY
Tawny - a yellow brown colour
Vapour - steam
Uprolled - moving upwards as something rolls
Webby - like a web
Waning - disappearing, fading
Taper - a shape that reduces in side towards one end, like a candle
Glimmers - shimmering with light
Smartly - double meaning, neat, tidy and firm but also can refer to a sharp, harsh
pain
Dazes - confuses / makes dizzy
‘Tis the morrow - it is the next day (tomorrow)
Nears - comes near
Disclose - tell information
Penned in highest feather - written down with the most expensive feather quill pen
Jaunts - trips, journeys
Brake and burn - old fashioned words for green pastoral scenery (brake) and a
fresh-water stream (burn)
STORY/SUMMARY
Part One: The Tragedy
From the title, we know that the subject of the poem is a woman, somebody’s wife,
who lives in London. She is sitting in her house near the river Thames, surrounded by
vapours - likely the pollution of the city, as London at this time was known to be
extremely polluted and full of smog. Behind the thick smog, which looks like a web, a
streetlamp faintly gives off a cold light.
A messenger knocks at the door, sharply. In his hand he carries a quick bit of news -
the news is difficult for the woman to process, even though it is phrased so shortly: He
(her husband) has been killed in battle - in the ‘far South Land’, an unspecified war that
took place further South in the world than England, likely the Boer War (see context
for more info).
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